Thien Baffle, Version 1

My first attempt at a Thien Baffle. The stats:- 16” high top hat chamber made out of 1/2” MDF.- 55 gallon drum with 99cent 3/4” pipe insulation as sealing medium (hay… it works!).- 6” short piece of spiral pipe squashed with my foot to become 8.5” x 4” oval at the inlet.- 1/16” lexan x 16” high x 60” length (pretty sure it was 60”) sitting in a 1/8” deep groove (went through 2 bits for this).- 1/8” hardboard sitting on top of the center baffle with the 1/2” MDF underneath recessed 1” away from rim.- wanted to see what would happen if i did a 45 degree bevel at the bottom part of the lexan so that debris will not accumulate at bottom of the lexan. it works.- all circular routing was done with the MicroFence and circular jig. What a life saver! Will have to do a “Review” on this product soon.- for some reason, my Grizzly has a 6” inlet at the blower instead of 7” like everyone else’s in the world. instead of buying $50+ for a 10’ length of flex 6” hose, using HVAC 6” 26gauge was much much cheaper. $20?- i cut a 14” hole on top of the baffle and a cover plate for future: possibly installing 6” bellmouth, cleaning, changing height for fine tuning, etc.- the arc cut is wrong in these pictures except for the final. i cut the start of the arc TOO close to the inlet… and the end of the arc TOO far away from the inlet… it’s suppose to be the other way around. I had to redo the baffle plate.- the blue barrel is raised so the inlet is same height as my 2” x 12” board that goes around my shop (which i used to hide my shop remodel electrical runs). this gives me future ‘space’ to find a way to lower the barrel to empty and this will be where my main runs of 6” will go.- did a test run and things turned out aok. lexan didnt flex at all under vacuum, some planer debris i had laying around all fell thru the arc cut (looks to be 100%). i’m unsure of the fine dust collection to the grizzly DC itself as i have to fine tune the outlet height still.

things i have learned from this project:1.) never again use MDF for major projects. This was the first time cutting MDF. I learned REALLY fast to cut outside of the work shop.2.) MDF dulls blades and router bits fast. If i have to dabble with MDF, i’ll but cheap bits and blades that are disposable afterwards.3.) i’m terrible at precision cuts and making things square. i think i rush and do not double check.

this has worked flawlessly. i probably only have a couple inches in the bottom of my dual bags where as i would of emptied both once or 2x’s by now. and emptying the blue barrel is a breeze: lower the platform, scoot out, remove 55 gallon trash liner bag, put in new one, re-install barrel.i still have yet to 100% seal the “chimney” pipe or get a bell mouth.oh… i have since added 45-45 for every bend into the impeller instead of using 90’s.